Paul: Hello everyone! SHUX 2018 is now just four days away, looming like a mountain in the mist, so we won't be putting any new or posts up on the site this week. Instead, the whole team is sat around a table as I write this to do last minute prep, which includes everything from rolling up characters for live RPGs to making sure the compass arrow on the convention map really is pointing North. Is it? FIND OUT ON FRIDAY.

masterfully malachite, construction calamity, find out if paul is less of a man

Paul: Once again, the Games News Helicopter touches down on the top of SU&SD corporate headquarters and I burst out the side, doing that hold-your-head-down-slightly thing that people do and clutching a fistful of papers that describe today’s top stories.

But, oh no! The downwash from the propellers blows them out of my hands and they scatter across the city! Some people end up finding the news about a Food Chain Magnate expansion, others the sequel to Shadespire, others still the exciting and resplendent Ragusa. That was the first story returned to us, so let’s start there!

Quinns: Hey all! Matt, Paul and I will be live on our Twitch page in a few hours, at 7pm BST, 2pm EDT. We'll be streaming the superb Whitehall Mystery (see my review here), with Matt playing the role of a real-life murderer while Paul and Quinns hunt him down like a weird, tall dog.

If you can't make the stream, don't worry about a thing! You'll be able to watch the stream in its entirety on Twitch as soon as it's finished, and we'll be uploading the playthrough itself to YouTube tomorrow evening.

You dice are bleeding, you say? Not to worry! It's nothing a podcast won't fix.

Matt and Quinns kick this one off with a big, hairy discussion of Ultimate Werewolf Legacy, which segues into a discussion of legacy games in general. The expected "era of legacy games" is failing to materialise, and they offer some theories as to why.

Next up they chat about the smooth operations of V-Commandos, which is about to be re-implemented as an official Assassin's Creed board game. After that they discuss their time spent nursing cubes back to health in the disturbing (and entertaining!) facilities of Dice Hospital, which was a fun surprise for them both. Finally, they consider the carefully orchestrated fish feasts of Uwe Rosenberg's Nusfjord.

Oh, your dice are still bleeding? Oh dear. Well, try to not get it on the carpet. That's our advice.

Paul: Oof, sometimes you instantly know what must surely be the best Games News announcement of the week. It’s Men At Work, the debut design from Rita Modl, illustrated by the magnificent Chris Quilliams and coming from dexterity experts (aka “dexperts”) Pretzel Games.

This week we're proud to present our review of Root, which is surely the board game industry's new beau. A grand, inventive game of cat and mouse, as well fox and bird, and - should you buy the Riverfolk expansion - beaver and lizard.

As Quinns says in the review, everybody involved in this production needs to take a bow. But should you buy it? Click play and find out...